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Sunday, March 02, 2014

UK Muslim Boys' School- Only Men Need Apply For Science Teacher Job

A school for Muslim boys in Leicester, England is in trouble for discrimination with regard to its hiring practices. The school needs a temporary science teacher but they don't want women working there, so they specified men only in an ad placed with a recruiting company called Capita.

The advert published by the outsourcing company Capita requested a “Male Science Teacher” to cover lessons, including some mathematics classes, until the end of the current academic year on a short term contract for up to £150 a day.
[snip]

The National Secular Society said it had been alerted to the advertisement by a female science teacher who had been looking for work in the Leicester area.

The ad was eventually pulled after the Department of Education got involved stating that

“Schools must comply with equality law. "We asked Leicester City Council to raise this with the school and the advert has now been withdrawn.”

But we all know the school will still only hire a male.

The NSS had this to say:

“Being male isn't a genuine occupational requirement for a science teacher in a state school. Any attempt to try and make it so is unjustifiable.

“The Government's encouragement of schools run by religious groups will bring with it increasing demands for religious customs and practices to be accommodated within our education system.

“If religious demands to discriminate and segregate along gender lines are accommodated, teachers of the 'wrong sex' will be disadvantaged and children in such schools are unlikely to be adequately prepared for life as equal citizens in a liberal democracy – which should be one of the fundamental aims of education policy. “For some religious groups, it is clear that the primary goal of state education should be to instill parents' religious beliefs in children. “Equality must not be sacrificed in the rush to satisfy their demands.”